SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

But let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. James 1:19)

   I’d always thought it was possible to make good grades and have an active social life - all you needed was a plan. College was like war, and you had to pick your battles and plan a long campaign. My sophomore year my plan was this - Make three A’s, one B, and two C’s. This would give me a 3.5 average (bearly) and allow me to keep my academic scholarship. My A courses were in New Testament Survey (cake), Western Civ (also cake), and American Lit II (not cake - but a blast). My B course was Tennis and volleyball (you had to write a paper to make an A). And My C courses were Bio 2 (who wants to memorize all the bones of the body and the chemical process of photosynthesis), and Business Math (cake - but lots of homework). I knew just how much I had to do to get those grades in those courses, and did just that much work. For instance, all I needed from my NT Survey workbook was a 94, so I computed the number of questions in it and did exactly 94% of them (correctly) and left the rest blank. It was a great plan and provided me with a great second sophomore semester - until one week before finals when I got my NT Survey workbook back. In red ink on the title page the grade 94% had been marked out and replaced with a 89%. Beneath it my professor, Clifton Inman, had written these words:

Barry, you came to us a very good and sincere student. You are letting some of this slip. Return to your first love.

I was furious. I went to Clifton Inman’s office and demanded to know just how many questions, I had answered correctly in my workbook. I knew the answer as well as he did - 94%. “But,” he said, “You didn’t work hard enough to deserve an A.” I wasn’t going to argue, and I wasn’t going to beg. I stayed up all night and wrote a paper for Tennis and Volleyball and raised that grade to an A, keeping my academic scholarship intact. I hadn’t let the old man beat me.

Clifton Inman was a saintly man and we had been close. I spent my freshman year helping him at his congregation in Rockport, West Virginia. I spent a lot of time in his home - he was like a surrogate grandfather. After the workbook incident we were never really close again. When he died a few years ago I pulled out that workbook to read the note he had written me. At the age of 30, I understood fully he was right, and saw them as words of wisdom. I was not prepared for what I found. The phrase “return to your first love,” did not end in a period, but a comma. It was followed by the words, “I say this because I love you very much.”

Luke 22:62 - And he went out and wept bitterly.

I have in my Library over 30 books just about communication, and communication theory (I even have one by Ed McMahon) - none of them can improve upon James 1:19. Let every one of you be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

Be quick to hear. It is more important to hear than to be heard. The first act of communication is to listen. We all know it is rude to interrupt a person speaking with our own words - but how many of us interrupt them mentally? How often do we turn someone off because we assume we know what they are going to say? How often do we start formulating a mental response before someone has finished speaking?  

Be slow to speak. Making a message connect, making words express our true thoughts is hard work. Have we taken the time to choose the right words, and to consider their cumulative effect?

Be slow to anger. Most of us become angry about what we have merely imagined. We should never assume we have received any message correctly. We should never assume we know clearly and perfectly what was in the heart of the communicator.

I lost ten years of friendship with a man, a mentor who truly cared because I didn’t listen. What else have I lost?

What have you?

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